£2m for Keane 'seems like peanuts now'

Chris Boden

Michael Keane could prove to be one of the best pieces of business in Burnley's history.

Not bad considering there were some question marks two seasons ago, when Sean Dyche paid Manchester United £2m for a player with no Premier League experience.

Keane is expected to attract interest from a number of top clubs in the summer, including United, Chelsea, Manchester City, Liverpool and Everton.

Burnley turned down offers up to £15m from champions Leicester City last summer, and that figure has only gone north over the season, given his performances at the top level, breaking into the England squad and team, and the way the market is currently.

Dyche made his move on deadline day in the summer of 2014, traveling to St George's Park in Burton to seal an initial loan deal, with Keane on England Under 21 duty.

Dyche looked back: "At that time I was being heavily questioned for paying £2million for him.

"People were saying he hadn’t done this or that.

"Now that seems like peanuts, but at the time that was considered quite a lot of money.

"I knew what I saw, I did my background on him, I knew he was a good learner, I spoke to various people who had had him before.

"As long as players can be developed and want to be developed, and when I met him down at St George’s, I said this is what we offer, this is what we do, and he’s brought into it and it’s been a good relationship ever since."

Dyche is big on developing players, and he added: "Of course Keano at the moment is catching the headlines, but you look at the ongoing development of Scott Arfield and Heats and people like that.

"They are just as important to me.

"There’s loads of those stories here and that is what I absolutely love about what we do.

"Not just getting success by winning, but the development of the players here, I take pride in every one, and the staff do as well.

"That’s a massive thing and he was one who I thought would fit that way of thinking, coming out of a club, nearly happened but not quite, a few loans, some good some not so good, it was quite rounded for a young lad to have had a lot of those situations.

"Harry Kane and Tom Cleverley were quite similar. Maybe that’s the future, go and have a mini career before you have the big career at any given big club."

Burnley have had success with signing players from the elite clubs, such as Kieran Trippier and Ben Mee from Manchester City, but Dyche is eager to bring players in from all areas and levels: "We’re trying to find a mixture. With our youth system we’ve gone backwards to go forwards. That’s being restructured.

"Then we’ve brought a few young ones in like Dan Agyei who is going well at the moment and differently with Aiden O'Neill.

"Then you’ve got beyond that players like Keano. When we brought him I said he was still kind of a development player, and all players develop differently, I believed there was a lot more to come."